Oculus planning VR MMO

Oculus VR, the company behind the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, has set its sights on creating a massively multiplayer online game that uses the technology.

Talking at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2014, Oculus VR chief executive Brendan Iribe announced the plans to work on the MMO project which would support one billion people simultaneously.

Iribe added that the ambitious project’s chances of success would be improved by the deal that Oculus signed with Facebook, which acquired the company back in March for $2bn. He stated that the virtual reality online game is ’going to take a bigger network than exists in the world today’ but that Facebook’s network is a good start.

There is a possibility that Oculus VR will look at joining separate virtual worlds together as opposed to creating one large cohesive one.

.The first milestone for the company before they start any serious work on an MMO is however to focus on making its users feel that they are having real conversations with people, which Iribe describes as the company’s holy grail. The Oculus Rift’s potential as a communication device is also what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stated attracted him to the company back in March.

No official release date for the consumer version of the Oculus Rift has yet been announced, although a couple of articles have previously hinted at a 2015 release date. The developer kit, funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign, was delivered to backers in August 2012 and several companies have been adding support for the hardware already and several projects specifically for the device are currently in development.